


Pencil In Your Dance Card

by renquise



Series: Life is pretty mundane, even for elite mercenary teams. [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 09:39:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/147901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renquise/pseuds/renquise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dancing lessons with the RED team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pencil In Your Dance Card

Engineer isn’t too sure when he’d gotten it in his fool head that Scout needed to learn to dance properly. Maybe it had seemed like a good idea somewhere between getting another beautiful set of kills with his shiny new sentry and watching Scout run past with the intelligence yet again—you know, the sort of day where you’re all hopped-up on confidence and pretty much anything sounds like a brilliant plan. In any case, he’s regretting it now.

“Boy, you’ve got to know how to dance if you’re every plannin’ on courtin’ a lady. We’re talkin’ about the basic tenets of gentlemanliness, here.” Jesus, trying to talk the boy into doing anything moderately cultured was like pulling teeth.

Nevertheless, Engineer cues up the battered record player, delicately guiding the needle onto one of his lovely big band records—one of the few that remained of his collection after a Frisbee game combined with Sniper’s bored skeet-shooting had gone horribly off-track. With a light crackle, the melancholy clarinet of Artie Shaw floats through the air.

“Do I have to be the girl? ‘Cuz if I have to be the girl, hardhat, I’m walkin’. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

Engineer resisted the strong urge to roll his eyes at Scout—not that he would notice, goggles and all, but it was the principle of the thing. “No. No, you’re going to be the gentleman, because you’ve got to learn to lead, boy, unless you’re countin’ on doin’ the foxtrot with Heavy, in which case, I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be leadin’.”

“Hey!”

“Now, see, the lady puts her hand on your shoulder, and you rest your hand on her back—not too low, boy, you don’t want any hanky-panky goin’ on—and you let her rest her other hand in yours. Don’t grip it tightly, now, you’ve got to be delicate.”

“This is so gay.”

Scout reluctantly lets himself be guided through the basic steps, though protesting all the way, and it’s actually going fairly well, for certain definitions of “well,” until—

“That is the most atrociously mutilated version of a foxtrot I have ever seen.” Oh, great. Just what they needed—Spy pulling his usual appearing-out-of-goshdarned-nowhere trick. No doubt he’d arranged himself to lean on the wall at the precise angle needed for a perfectly nonchalant attitude, too.

“Mon Dieu, at least you’re not teaching the poor impressionable boy the two-step, or something similarly abysmal.” Spy sighs.

“Hey! Hey, I’m not a freakin’ impres-er, impreso-whatsit!”

Spy duly ignores Scout’s protests. “Allow me to cut in.”

“Be my guest.” Engineer steps away. “And there ain’t nothin’ wrong with a good ol’ Texas two-step, neither.”

“You mean apart from the fact that it’s simplistic and crude?”

“Sometimes, you’ve just got to get back to the basics. But, the boy’s got to start somewhere, and the foxtrot’s good a dance as any.”

“It’s a sad day when I find myself in agreement with you, mon ami.”

“Hey! You jerks, don’t I even get a say here? Hello?”

Spy rolls his eyes and adjusts Scout’s posture, straightening his shoulders perfunctorily before grasping Scout’s waist and pulling him closer, much to Scout’s consternation and sputtered protests. “Watch and learn, labourer.”

Fifteeen or so minutes of frustration later, Engineer can’t help but feel a little smug.

“Mon dieu, how can you even comprehend how to stand on your own two feet? It’s not that difficult! You would think that even your miniscule— _one_ step, then left. _Left_ foot first!”

“These feet are for runnin’, not all this namby-pamby shit!” Scout whines, and Engineer winces as Scout treads again on Spy’s neatly polished shoes—though this time seems a little more deliberate than the previous missteps.

“Honestly—argh, I simply can’t work with this!” Leaving Scout with his hands hanging in midair, Spy whirls around, and Engineer suddenly finds himself swept out of his seat, his feet reflexively falling into the one-and-two-and-three-four, slow, slow, quick-quick.

“Well, that’s a little better, at least,” Spy says after a few turns around the room, and damned if Engineer can’t detect the slightest edge of surprise in his voice.

Engineer snorts at that. “Wouldn’t know fine dancin’ if it hit you in the face.”

“You’d best keep up, labourer—Scout needs some sort of example.”

“Good god, Spy, if you treat all ‘a your dates with this charmin’ courtesy, I’m befuddled that none of them come back for a second go.”

With a smooth sweep, Spy guides the two of them back into the opening steps. “I’m afraid I can’t unleash my full experience on the likes of you—how you do not trip over those boats you call feet, I have no idea.”

“Shut your trap and dance, twinkletoes.”

Spy obligingly leads him through a few quick steps, neat and precise. “I hope this is good enough for your high standards?”

Engineer scoffs at that, of course. “It’ll do, I reckon.” Some part of him can’t help but be reluctantly impressed with Spy’s fancy footwork, though it makes sense that he’s light on his feet—all the better to sap your sentries, right?

As they pass into another turn, he quickly slips his hand under Spy’s arm and shifts the grip of his left hand, the soft leather of Spy’s glove rubbing against the rough texture of his own glove. There’s a small misstep as Spy raises an eyebrow and grips his hand a little harder then necessary, but he concedes fairly amiably, sliding his hand up to Engineer’s shoulder. “Very well, then—after all, isn’t the leader supposed to make the follower look good? You should have less of a challenge than I, of course.”

“A veritable master of jocularity, y’are.” Engineer throws a quick changeup in there, and Spy follows step for step, long legs lightly brushing against his own.

“But really, your lack of stature makes this a little awkward, you must admit.”

“Yeah, well, you ain’t exactly the most comely lady, so I imagine it evens out.”

“Touché.”

The record goes on to a more up-tempo song, and Spy takes the opportunity to switch his grip to lead again, pulling Engineer into a fast, precise turn that presses them together.

Engineer frowns briefly at Spy when he tries to lead them into a dip. Shrugging philosophically, Spy turns the dip into a smooth box step, his hand shifting against the small of Engineer’s back.

It’s definitely a mite strange to move in sync with Spy when they’re so often working towards opposite ends, but somehow, it’s pleasant—a reminder of slow, easy nights in smoky bars with a tune on the jukebox and a pretty girl on his arm. The wooden floor creaks under their feet, the boards shifting against each other whenever they pass over, and that’s got him all sorts of nostalgic for the back porch of his ranch, swaying and dancing under the summer stars.

Twisting into another turn, Engineer feels Spy’s feet stutter, which strikes him as strange, and he slowly realizes that the needle has slid off the record’s grooves with a soft pop, cutting off the last, lingering notes of clarinet.

Scout’s staring at them with a thoroughly bewildered expression. “Okay, I’m going to pretend that didn’t happen. ‘Cuz that got a little weird. And by weird, I mean gay.”

Medic is standing in the doorway, humming thoughtfully. “Hm. Not completely terrible, but you must be more fluid in your turns, Spy. You simply cannot be lazy with your extensions. Engineer, your leading hand droops a bit in closed position—you must be careful of that.”

“Doktor is very good dancer!” Heavy booms, “Won big prize for dancing.”

Pyro pops his head in, nodding in agreement and making a beeline for the record player, huffing appreciatively and slipping a Benny Goodman record out of its sleeve, careful not to fumble it with his gloves on.

“And just WHAT is going on here? Are you ladies lacing up your pretty dancing shoes? Why don’t you get some ribbons to twirl while you’re at it! By god, man, the only ribbons that should be waving around here are the ones you’ve carved from your enemy’s flesh!” Soldier grabs Scout, all the while barking out, “Now, the POLKA, that is a man’s dance. Hup-one-two-three—“

Engineer isn’t too sure how it happens, exactly, but by the time Sniper and Demo arrive, Pyro is cueing up the slightly-less-scratched-up Helen Forrest record, Medic is demonstrating the finer points of a natural pivot turn for the benefit of Scout and Heavy with Soldier’s (somewhat argumentative) help, and—well, Spy’s showing him a basic _baldosa_ , his feet quick and clever on the wooden floor and his hand warm, even through their gloves.

\---

A week or so later, a letter arrives at the BLU base. It’s got quite a few misspellings and scratch-outs, but the gist of it goes something like this:

HEY YOU BLU LOSERS

YEAH YOU

THE FREAKIN AMAZING RED TEAM CHALLENGES ALL OF YOU PUSSIES TO A DANCE-OFF

MEDIC IS TELLING ME TO WRITE THAT YOU IDIOTS BETTER KNOW A FREAKIN GOOD FOXTROT. AND AN, er, INTERNATIONAL STYLE viy- veene- VIENNESE WALTZ. AND SPY HOPES ONE OF YOU CAN DANCE A DAMN GOOD TANGO, CUZ OTHERWISE YOU’RE ALL GOING DOWN

YEAH THAT’S RIGHT

ANYWAYS

MELEE WEAPONS ARE FAIR GAME

BYO RECORDS, OR WE’RE DANCING TO ENGIE’S OLD MAN MUSIC

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE


End file.
